


Recasting the Die (Or how to erase your fate, twice, in a thousand simple steps)

by PurpleBlaze



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Brainwashing, Gen, Gen Work, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Natasha Romanov, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Not Canon Compliant, Parent Steve Rogers, Protective Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Team Bonding, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-03-20 18:54:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18998515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleBlaze/pseuds/PurpleBlaze
Summary: An AU where Steve learns that Natasha is his biological daughter.A team-as-family gen fic.kid Nat in Prologue, tween Nat in chapter 1, story is Adult Nat





	1. Prologue (Or some backstory about how Steve learns about DNA theft the hard way)

It started as you know it.

Steve Rogers flew a plane into a mountain. He went under the ice only to wake up to a world overrun with technology, aliens, and government secret agencies. Like he got sucked into a science fiction novel with no way out.

He settled as best he could into the world of SHIELD. He kept a list of things he missed out on. Multiple lists. Long lists. Even a Master List to categorize his other lists.

Mid-December, only a couple months after waking up, Nick Fury arrived at his bunk. Single-bed Shield rooms, for those lucky or important enough to live in one, came equipped with a sink and mirror next to the door.

Steve, standing at said sink and therefore suddenly within speaking distance of the Commander at the door, put down his razor and instinctively straightened to attention. 

Military training is 90% muscle memory.

"At ease. This is your room agent," Commander Nick Fury said. Steve reached for his towel and wiped the remaining shaving cream off his jaw, leaving a few patches of un-trimmed 5 o’clock shadow. 

"Commander, what can I do for you?" 

He may be new to SHIELD and didn’t know Fury well, but he could certainly guess that the commander wasn't one for making house calls.

Fury held out a folder, "classified" stamped redundantly all over. "We have a mission. I think you'll find pages 46 and 47 particularly interesting. If you feel you're capable of remaining uncompromised, you may join. We head out at 1700. Land in Stalingrad at 0218"

Steve reached out and took the proffered file. Glancing once at Commander Fury, he flipped through documents, photos, and photocopies until he landed at page 46. It was a spreadsheet with the details of some kind of DNA breeding program: Viable semen from a ‘Donor X’ combined with eggs from 'women of superior genes' grown in test tubes. Enhancer serum added at different intervals throughout the nine-month incubation period. 

One successful trial. Female.

Steve flipped the page.

Page 47: biostats of Donor X: Steven Rogers.

And just like two months ago when he ran out to Times Square, and the world tilted on its axis with the absurdity of his new reality. The world tilted again. He had a daughter.

\---------------  
At 1700, as the quintjet took off, Steve had already been in the quintjet’s hanger for over an hour. Impatient to leave, he poured over every page of the dossier. 

The Red Room. Bringing up little girls to be spying assassins and killer seductresses.

SHIELD intel also procured a list of names and statuses for the girls in the program. It was horrifying the number of little girls’ names marked "deceased". A parent's worst nightmare. Even a brand new parent.

Speaking of, he only knew her name and age. He rubbed his thumb over the words. 

Natalia.  
Age 8. 

He had never put too much thought to children. From a sickly young man to a soldier, a white picket fence life had always been a background dream. If he had Peggy had a daughter, what would they have named her? Sarah for his mom maybe. He always liked the name Norma.

\---------------

On a perfect SHIELD timetable, at 0218 the quintjet landed outside the Red Room facilities.

Although Steve and the other agents were quick and efficient, it was too slow. 

Find her now. Find her now. The mantra rolled back and forth in his thoughts.

A young, new recruit sharpshooter, Clint Barton, took out the guards. 

Find her now. 

Agent Crisston slipped in and disabled an alarm. 

Find her now.

They silently charged through the facility, splitting off and rejoining where necessary. The facility consisted of long, dim hallways with a thousand rooms.

In a concrete space with machines pushed up against every wall, he found two little girls hooked up to IVs and wires. One in a chair. One on a table. They had on black leotard tops and black shorts. Wide straps tied both down, the belts buckled against their thighs, arms, wrists, and ankles.

The agents spread out while he beelined to the little girl on the table, about nine. 

Skinny. Hair chopped short. 

Her face too pale. Lips ringed with blue. 

Eyes open and sightless. Dead.

No. This wasn’t… couldn’t…

Two fingers to her small neck proved what he knew. He turned to the second girl. She looked older. 14 at least. He should ask her about her own welfare, but the shield agents were already checking her over, removing the sticky electrodes from her scalp.

“Who is this?” he rasped.

The girl stared at him, blank-eyed.

“Who is this?” he repeated.

Finally, she said, “Ty amerikanets.”

Of course, she wouldn’t speak English. He was about to turn for a translator when the girl in the chair pointed to the girl in the table and said, “Svetlana.”

Steve dropped his head down and let himself breathe out slowly. It was too early in the mission to fall apart.

Ignoring everyone, he stood up and went back into the hall.

He encountered more agents telling him they found girls sleeping in a dormitory. All chained by the wrist to their beds. To early to think about that now. He pushed on to the dorm. 

The girls in there, about half a dozen total, all had hollow eyes. No child should ever look this haunted… empty even. 

“Natalia?” he asked. There was no reason for him to know Russian, but he cursed himself all the same. One little girl rubbing her newly-free wrist walked to the door to point down the hall. “Natalia is in gym 1,” she said with a slightly accented intonation.

Steve couldn’t even thank the girl. He ran. 

He found a room that could only be a gym, and he knew it was the right place due to the burly man advancing at him. The man held a pistol that he pointed at Steve’s chest.

Deep in the gym, like an actor downstage, Steve could see the outline of a girl. 

Steve held his hands up. “Let’s calm down. Do you know English?” he asked the Russian man. 

The Russian, adorned with a silver mustache and black flak jacket, replied by pulling the trigger.

Instinctively, Steve was already on the ground, pulling his own gun and shooting at the Russian’s chest. Training taught him to always aim center chest. The Russian went down and stayed there.

After making sure the man no longer posed a threat, Steve turned to the outline of the girl- she had remained quiet and still throughout the confrontation. The beams of the fluorescent bulb behind her cast her as a stark shadow. He stepped closer to see her fully.

She was a muscular little thing for her age, yet still long-legged and gawky. She had red hair that glowed in the light, a sharp chin, and sharper eyes that regarded him like a lion facing a herd of buffalo: fierce but outnumbered. 

Natalia (for who else could this be?) stood near a balance beam, the outlines of parallel bars and other equipment behind her. She wore the same black leotard/shorts combo of the girls being experimented on.

He stepped closer and knelt before her. He didn't want to scare her, a big man who came in with a blazing gun. She looked him in the eye, emotionless. Was she afraid? Relieved? How could he even communicate with ? What was Russian for “hello”? He knew that one. He vowed to start taking Russian lessons immediately. 

He held out a hand. “Khellou,” he said softly.

She didn't take his hand, but she did say, "You don't have to try to speak bad Russian. I can communicate in your language." His eyebrows rose.

"You killed my coach."

"Yes. I'm sorry."

She didn't react. Didn't ask a question. He heard his backup arrive in the gym behind him. He pulled his hand back. Not reaching out to her or moving forward, he didn’t want to scare her, he said, “You and the other girls are safe. We will take you with us and give you a good, happy life.”

Natalia didn’t react at all.

\------  
SHIELD got all the girls to a secret SHIELD Facility in Poland for processing, and Steve took Natalia back to the U.S. with the away team. It was quiet on the quintjet. Natalia sat straight and tall in her seat, eyes ahead, looking at him only when he talked to her.

He sat next to her. Offered her a bottled water which she accepted.

"Sooo... Natalia. How old are you?" He played with his own water bottle, peeling at the edges of the wrapper where the condensation weakened the label.

"You know how old I am. That is your bag tucked behind the blue duffel near the hangar door and it has all the files from the Red Room retrieved from the data breach last week." She said it as a fact. 

Steve peeled the bottle wrapper further. "So no small talk then?"

"Small talk is for children."

That startled a laugh out of him. "Natalia. You are a child." 

The corners of her mouth tightened and Steve was quick to add, "Or eight is considered a child. In most countries. In all civilized countries.” Her lips were still tight. He added, awkwardly, “I'm sorry that you've had to grow up too fast... if you don't put yourself in the category of where a eight-year-old should be."

She was incredibly hard to read, but she seemed mollified enough to ask the first question she had since he found her in that cold gym in Stalingrad. "Why did you separate me from the other girls?"

Steve had no idea how to handle a potentially sensitive matter delicately. Or what the right way was. But he remembered when he was a sickly kid he always appreciated when doctors and adults were straight shooters. He had the feeling Natalia was the same way.

He unbuckled his seat belt and swiveled until he was kneeling in front of her, eye-level. She half-raised one eyebrow and leaned slightly back. When he reached to hold her hands with his she tucked them under her, so he settled for resting his hands on his knees.

"Natalia, do you know anything about your parents?"

"I was created by the Red Room."

When she didn't go on Steve filled in, "Yes, but they needed..." He paused. How much did an eight-year-old know? "DNA from a daddy and a mommy to make you." Steve rubbed his knees.

“I know what sex is Steve Rogers.”

Ignoring that, Steve plunged, "Natalia, I'm your father."

He didn't know if he expected her to tear up, get excited, ask questions, hug him, punch him. What he got instead was her typical stoic face. 

He waited for her to say something. Wanting so desperately to hug her but couldn't because she didn't know him. A fact that stung.

Finally she asked, "Was my mother an enhanced human too."

"How do you know I'm enhanced?" She indicated at his general physique like, 'well duh' and did not elaborate.

"According to the files, your mother was an athlete who turned to modeling. She's been a missing person for over a decade. But SHIELD, this organization, is looking for her."

That had been a sickening fact to read in The Black Widow Program dossier. The women whose eggs had been stolen to mix with his... specimen became all disappeared from existence- spirited away from their loved ones.

"So now you'll go home with me. And you'll get the childhood you never had." He looked at her face. 

Emotionless. 

"How does that sound?" 

She shrugged.

\-------

They detained Natalia long enough to determine she posed no threat to society at her current age, but she'd be required to attend therapy sessions twice a week for the foreseeable forever.

Natalia was a solemn child. She noticed everything, could pick up on anything, did as she was told, but Steve never saw her crack a real smile. Polite smiles did not count. 

Trying to make up for eight years of child abuse and seeing a real smile became Steve's two single-minded purposes in life.

He had money (more than enough to live comfortably for the rest of his life) from stocks and bonds Howard Stark left in Steve’s name. He quit active duty Shield and started the process of looking for a place for him and Natalia to live. A process with no input from Natalia. 

"What do you think?" he asked at their fourth house tour. She looked at hardwood floors. Looked giant kitchen with granite island dominating the center. Looked at the open floorplan. Looked at the private backyard complete with giant redwood porch and swimming pool. "If this is what you wish, purchase it." She sometimes worded things formally; he assumed it was some English-as-a-second language issue.

"Do you like to swim?" He pointed outside toward the pool as if she hadn't noticed it, which of course she had. He was just trying his darndest to act normal for his assassin/spy trained daughter.

She tilted her head but didn't answer the question.

Maybe she didn't understand, which of course she did. He didn't even know how many languages she was an expert in.

"Do you know how to swim?" He rephrased. 

"Yes." was all he got from her. He bought the house.

\-------------------------  
Sometimes Steve thought his daughter was a robot.

She went to therapy and answered succinctly only what was asked of her. (“Give her time. She needs time to discover her identity,” the therapist told him). 

He enrolled her in school and she finished all her work in class, never made less than a 100% (“She learns quickly. She’s exceptionally intelligent,” the teachers said). 

She never brought any friends home (“Natalia doesn’t interact with her classmates any more than she has to,” her teachers told him.) 

He took her to church every Sunday, where she sat and stood with the congregation, held they hymnal open to the right page, and stared straight ahead, glassy-eyed. (“Give her time,” the pastor said. “Sometimes we don’t know God’s bigger purpose. That’s where faith comes in.”)

“Do you want to take any classes?” He asked one night, scrolling down the website of Grace’s Dance Academy. “Ballet? Jazz? Tap? Any kind of dance?”

She looked up from where she was reading a textbook in an armchair. “If you want me to.”

“I only want you to if you want you to,” Steve countered.

“I do not care.”

\---------------  
“Is it weird that I want so badly for her to rebel?” Steve asked Clint Barton in the mess hall one day. He continued, “Is it weird I want her to cop an attitude with me just to show some darn emotion? Start smoking? At least that’s an interest!

“She only watches the movies I put on for her. Only reads the books I give her. Only listens to the music I play for her.”

“Remember to play her the classics. AC\DC. Poison. Huey Lewis,” Clint said as he stabbed at his green beans.

Steve ran a hand through his hair. “I play a lot of U.S. top 40 pop. I figure she should be up-to-date with what the pre-teens are listening to.”

Clint swallowed his fork full of beans and said, “You’ve probably heard it already, but it bears repeating: this takes time. She needs time and routine. And good role-models. And people who care about her. It will happen.” He stabbed down at his food again. “You’re a good dad. You are all of that to her.”

Steve stirred his mashed potatoes. “What if I’m not enough.”

Clint glanced away. “As someone who grew up with a terrible father, I promise you’re enough.” He glanced back as Steve was about to ask something and said, “But whattyda think about movie night tonight? I’ll bring the popcorn.”

Monday movie night became a tradition. If Clint or Steve were gone for work, they pushed it to the next available day.

It happened for the first time at one of these movie nights: she smiled. 

He was in the kitchen waiting for the popcorn to finish. Nat and Clint sat on the couch watching the main characters break a flock of geese out of Animal Control. 

Clint rambled, “This making the animal control guy the ‘bad guy’ just isn’t working for me. He’s a regular guy just doing his job. Just like me. Trying his best and just wants to clock out and go home…” 

Steve glanced up and saw the holy grail. Nat was smiling! And the smile stayed there for Clint’s whole rant. 

“...And he really does want what’s best for the birds. He even drops some pretty logical logic on us…” Steve reached for his phone and subtly snapped a picture. If other parents got their kids first laughs and walks on camera, then darn it, he wanted his kid’s first smile.

Two weeks later came another first: Natalia asking for something she wanted. A strawberry milkshake to drink during movie night was a small request, sure, but from then on Steve made sure to always have strawberries, milk, and ice cream on hand.

The firsts kept rolling in. First interest: She asked if she could learn to play the flute at school band. Steve didn’t know where that came from, but he happily bought a flute and every stupid accessory that came with it, including a music stand, every beginner sheet music at the store, and a cleaning kit with polishes and cloths.

“The Wind Ensemble is coming through DC,” Phil Coulson mentioned one day in a meeting. “I could get tickets.” Which is how Natalia and Phil Coulson started going to concerts together. Not just classical concerts, but pop artists, live jazz music, and Off-Broadway shows. 

There was one memorable rock performance in an over-21 bar that Steve had reservations about, but Phil reassured him that he could get her in and it was the only place they played in DC. Natalia came home at 2am and blasted base from her room until Steve came in and took her speakers.

As she grew older, she grew more and more as a person. Steve almost hugged her the first time she rolled her eyes at him and muttered, "lame". (In her defense, two Disney Princesses (Jasmine and Belle) at a 12-year-old’s birthday party with just him, Phil, and Clint in attendance was arguably lame, but he would do it all over again for the sass.)

She had favorite movies. Which Steve was glad for, but he was getting really sick of watching Fly Away Home and Ever After.

She finally grew into a real personality. Steve learned that she was a show-off. She quit the flute and asked to take dance and gymnastics. Steve suspected that she liked being the best and didn’t like being average at the flute. At every dance recital, she got the solo dance number while the other girls were background chorus. (Versus 5th chair flute out of 12 in Band.) 

Steve, Phil, and Clint went to every dance recital. Except for the last recital. But Phil would have made it if he wasn’t near-dead. And that last recital was also where she got abducted and Steve didn’t see her again until she was a renowned assassin who didn’t know him from Adam. 

But that is getting ahead of the story. 

The invasion came first.

The Chitauri invasion changed everything. The Avengers became a household name. The resuscitated Red Room saw their creation, got greedy, and took her. It wasn’t until six years later at the end of Clint Barton’s arrow did any of them see her, in person, again.


	2. Chapter 1 (in which the Avengers assemble, and Steve’s world is blown to smithereens at the end)

For Natalia and Steve, the Chitauri invasion started with a phone call.

Clint had given them an Xbox for Christmas, and they were playing a racing game that involved Steve running into walls and falling off cliffs.

For all that Natalia _finally_ picked up on the interests of a typical 14 year old, she remained reclusive and preferred to spend time with her dad instead of girls her own age; Something he would never complain about considering he missed the first eight years.

 _Ring. Ring._ Steve’s cell phone lit up.

Natalia made a face. “Just because you’re from the 40’s Dad doesn’t mean that you have to use the sounds of their time. We have modern ringtones you know.”

“What can I say? I’m a fan of the classics.” Steve pressed pause on his controller and picked up his cell. He hit “accept” on the fifth ring.

“Captain,” Coulson’s clipped voice came in. “We need you to come in.”

Steve straightened. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Barton. He’s been compromised.”

 

\---------------

Steve brought Natalia to Calcutta. If there was an alien-stone controlling shield-agents’ minds out there and an alien war coming, he wanted her near him. Just in case.

Steve didn’t know why Bruce Banner trusted him. Maybe it was that “earnest, all-american boy shtick” Clint always called him on, but Banner came with him and Natalia back to the helicarrier.

 

\---------------

The story continued close to how you know it.

Fury brought together Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Thor of Asgard, and Steve Rogers. While her dad and the rest of the team confronted and put Loki in a cage, Natalia played Tetris and Pinball on a one million dollar computer.

After hours of playing, she didn’t even come close to the top scores. SHIELD agents must have a lot of free time.

Her spot in the hub of computers gave her a good vantage point to take in (aka:eavesdrop on) everything. Also, the prime location to see her friend get shot.

Coulson collapsed onto the floor along with the pit in her stomach.  If Coulson died, who would make eggnog at Christmas? They still needed to see Kanye West in concert if he ever started touring again. Whose office would she hang in when Dad brought her to work? No one else kept Uno and Stratego in their desk.

_“Is he going to make it Dad?” Natalia asked. Face ashen. The last time she saw a man die she was 8 years old. The man before that, she pulled the trigger herself._

_Steve pulled her into a hug. “I hope so, Nat.”_

_The medics strapped him to a backboard and rushed him by. They shouted at each other in the calm, low voices of emergency training._

_“Please don’t die,” Natalia whispered. The soles of Coulson’s shoes, worn at center, got smaller and disappeared as they pulled him from view._

 

\---------------

Her friends and family were in danger (one already down), she was nosy, she still had years of professional spy training in her muscle memory, and she had a great vantage point from in the rafters to watch Steve cure Clint's mind control by punching him hard in the head.

_“Stay here. And I mean it!” Steve said as he dropped her in the medical room with Clint._

_“Nat?” the archer groaned._

_“Don’t you go too,” she thought as she sat by her friend. I can’t lose two of my family in one day._

\---------------

Natalia knew her dad would check on her. She made sure to be back at her one million dollar tetris machine just so that he could tell her to stay put and be safe.

Then she shadowed the Avengers onto the jet to New York. Hunched in an impossible position around a box in cargo, she smiled; she still had it.

 _Creeeeeak._ The cargo hatch opened. An angry scowl like she’d never seen before marked her dad’s face.

“Natalia Rogers! You know better than this.”

She might be good, but Captain America still possessed the superhuman senses of a super-soldier and a father.

 

\---------------

“Stay here. Don’t move.” Steve had commanded his daughter.

She hid in a building on a safe block. An earpiece adorned her ear so that she could hear the battle unfold.

Natalia like math. Math doesn't care about your feelings, it's either right or it's wrong. Point A to point B.

The tesseract (data point A) needed to be at the portal (data point B). All the variable players were busy. Except her.

She could not help it, really. Heroics ran in the Rogers’ blood. She snuck up onto the scene, grabbed the Tesseract, and caught a ride on an alien hoverbike.

“Just like the uneven bars,” she coached herself. Swing and pull yourself up and use the momentum to throw the alien off. The gymnastic coaches would be proud!

_"Natalia Rogers. Get back here!" Steve shouted._

 

\---------------

Of course, the Avengers saved the day. Tony made it back through the portal.

Steve held her tight enough to hurt when she returned to street level. He held her out at arms length- just dirt on her, no blood- and re-crushed her in his arms.

Shawarma tasted good- They all needed the calories.

Steve and Natalia crashed at SHIELD for a night in the medical wing. The doctors said it was still too early to know if Phil would live, so Steve took Natalia home.

 

\---------------

“You’re grounded,” Steve said when Natalia woke up and came downstairs for breakfast.

“I know.” She came over to pour grapefruit juice into their glasses while Steve added veggies to their omelettes.

“You can go to your dance recital because your teacher and the other students are depending on you.” He pointed a spoon at her. “Otherwise I wouldn’t let you go.”

“I know,” she said. She brought the juice to the table before going to get plates.

A bear hug from her dad stopped her.

“Disobeying me is one thing, but to disobey me when your life is in danger is beyond the pale.”

He tucked her closer.

“You scared me.”

She hugged him back. “I know. And I’m sorry.”

They stood like that until the omelettes started sizzling. They both let go with reluctance.

Natalia got two plates and went over to Steve. “I’m honestly surprised that it’s not cancelled. The recital that is. What with New York and all.”

“Routine is comforting to people in times of crisis.” Steve pushed the meal in the pan onto the plates Natalia held out for him. “And turn that off.”

Natalia reached for the remote and turned off the news right as Iron Man carried a rocket into a space hole.

 

\---------------

The news ran New York interviews and coverage 24/7 on every channel. All around the world.

In Russia, government officials watched footage of a red-headed teenage girl drop from an alien bike-craft and save the world by closing a portal.

“We need her,” they agreed. “Let’s get her back.”

 

\---------------

Two weeks later found Clint and Steve shoulder-to-shoulder in a crowded auditorium, clapping enthusiastically as Natalia and the other girls bowed onstage.

Nat caught Steve’s eye and winked before exiting stage left. Steve and Clint shouldered forward and maneuvered around the crowd to meet her near the front row.

But someone beat them to it. “Oh God,” Clint said. “Is she already old enough for boys?”

Sure enough, Natalia, still bedecked in her glittery dance outfit, giggled with a boy who’s shaggy hair begged for a haircut.

“Dad this is JJ,” Natalia said when Steve reached them.

“Nice to meet you Mr. Rogers,” the kid leaned forward to shake his hand.

“And this is my good friend Clint.”

As JJ shook Clint’s hand, Steve thought maybe the kid was alright. But his hair still wanted a sharp buzz-cut.

“Thanks for coming to see me one last time before I’m grounded forever.” Natalia hugged Clint. To her dad she said, “I’m going to go change and meet you at the car,” She paused and blushed, “And I might be a few extra minutes because JJ got me flowers that he forgot in his car.

Clint clapped JJ on the shoulder. “Ya hear that Steve? A _driving_ man!”

JJ shuffled his feet. “I have my learner’s permit. I drove here with my mom.”

Steve pointed at Natalia. “Don’t take too long. And remind your friend JJ that you’re grounded for the foreseeable future.”

“You looked really cool on the news,” JJ said shyly. “I probably would’ve been hiding in a building somewhere.”

Steve didn’t hear the rest as he and Clint turned to head out the back doors. “I’ve only been a father for 6 years. How is it fair that she’s dating already.”

“Dating might be putting too much importance on it. They’re in that adorable: “Do you like me? Check yes or no stage.”

“It’s a harbinger of less innocent things to come.”

“Harbinger? Is that something people said in the 30’s a lot? Because let me tell you, you all seemed a lot dumber in the history books- ow!” Clint exclaimed as Steve cuffed him.

“Well anyway. See you at work tomorrow. Day 14 out of 500,000 days of clean up New York paperwork. I’ll visit Phil first. Tell ‘im you said hi.”

“All right. See you tomorrow man.”

Steve found his car, got in, and turned on the engine. He flipped the radio to a classics station. He nodded along to Leo Reisman’s snappy beats. Reisman rolled into Duke Ellington which turned into a long commercial break.

After learning about two different auto insurances and an irresistible soda, Steve beat along to a Judy Garland song as the parking lot cleared out. A little girl with bright ribbons toddled behind her big sister. The girl tripped, but before she could cry about a scraped knee, her big sister swooped down, picked her up, and started talking animatedly. The toddler was too distracted to cry as she got deposited into her car seat. Mom, Dad, and sister all got in the car too before driving away.

Steve wondered, not for the first time, how life would have been if he had been blessed with Natalia when she was that age.

Steve frowned at the clock as Frank Sinatra’s “I’ll never smile again” started up. If Natalia got changed, said goodbye to her friends, and picked up her flowers from JJ, she should be at the car by now. Something in his gut told him that something was wrong.

Turning off the engine, he stepped out of the car. Lot B, where he parked, was mostly deserted.

Dusk had fallen quickly. Yellow light from parking lot posts drew lopsided circles around the lot.

Nobody parked in front at the biggest parking lot, Lot A, for performing arts center events. Steve began walking toward Lot C, tucked around the back corner.

Before he could make it all the way, a scream cut into the quiet night. Steve broke into a run.

A middle-aged woman stood near a blue minivan. Her hands clasped at her cheeks as she screamed bloody murder.

The screaming woman dropped to her knees out of Steve’s sight behind the minivan’s hood. He sprinted around.

Natalia’s dance bag. Abandoned.

A bouquet of wildflowers lay abandoned next to it. The daisies already looked disheveled.

A body.

JJ’s body sprawled flat. Blood pooled from a head injury under his hair on the concrete.

“JJ!” The woman screamed. She held two fingers to his neck.

Steve looked around. Two parents who had been exiting the back door of the Performing Arts Center headed toward them at the van.

No one else in sight.

“Natalia!” Steve shouted. He sprinted forward, toward the median of foliage that blocked Lot C from view of the main road.

“NATALIA!”

No answer.

 

\---------------

_Drip. Drip._

Senses came to Natalia in stages. Hearing first.

Then smell.

A bleach and old building combination. It smelled like her childhood.

Then touch.

A hand brushed her head. Like a hand petting a cat.

Cold metal circled her wrists. Her arm felt weird.

She dared herself to open her eyes.

A medical port was dripping clear substance into her hand. The same hand handcuffed to the bed she was laid out in.

An old face from her childhood grinned grotesquely down at her.

“Welcome home Natalia. We have a lot of work to do together.

 

\---------------  
_After_

Steve Rogers hadn’t slept in a year. Or, hadn’t slept well at least. He thought about Natalia every day when he woke up, and every night as he lay in bed staring up at the ceiling.

The Red Room didn’t leave a trace. Even Tony Stark and all his considerable connections and technology couldn’t find her, no matter how many times Steve asked again.

“I swear Cap. I want to find her too. If I learn anything, anything at all. I will tell you! Right away.”

Immediately after the kidnapping, SHIELD, Steve, Clint, and Tony threw all of their resources into finding her. Security cameras across the world scanned faces for the young redhead. Agents went undercover to sniff around. Records were combed and combed again.

They never found enough of a trail to even run cold.

 

\---------------

“We want to put you back into active duty rotation,” Maria Hill said to him one warm day almost a year later.

“No, we can’t give up!” Steve stood up from the Washington DC bench they were sitting on and whirled on her.

Maria spread her hands. “We didn't. We’re not. But we have nothing to go on.” She stood as well to put a hand on his shoulder. “I promise as soon as anything comes up, that will become TOP PRIORITY.” She knew how to turn a phrase with all caps implied.

“I need to be looking,” Steve said.

“Fine. Go ahead. What’s your big game plan? Where are you starting?” She asked pragmatically.

Steve’s shoulders slumped. Maria stood up too. “It might be good for you. Distract you from worry a little at least.”

Steve chuffed. “I can’t imagine that will be true.”

 

\---------------

Almost two years with Steve on active SHIELD duty passed before Tony’s software picked up Natalia’s likeness from a grainy security feed from a tiny barely-big-enough-to-even-be-called-an-airport airport outside of Guam. The camera caught her when she looked up at the man travelling with her. Other than that one moment, both man and teen kept their faces out of every camera’s line of sight.

Iron Man got their in record time, but no one remembered her, let alone where she went. They scoured flight logs and canvassed the area for miles. They followed up with every passenger on every flight to make sure their identities checked out. And found two people that never traveled that day.

“My daughter and I have not been out of the country,” the baffled looking Frenchman told the group of official looking men at his doorstep. His daughter with brown curls peeked around him.

Another dead end.

The last dead end, in fact... until the assassinations started.


	3. Chapter 2 (In which too much time passes, and Clint makes a different call)

“Black Widow.” A name that came to be whispered. Feared.

She appeared, murdered, and disappeared with an efficiency that scared even the intelligence community.

Her confirmed body count clocked in at about 119, but analysts estimated the true number to be higher.

SHIELD lucked out one night after she burned down an orphanage in Kiev- there were two agents in town for an unrelated mission.

Fury commissioned them to capture Black Widow, but the assassin killed them both; their bodies retrieved with twin gunshot wounds to the temple.

Steve attended both funerals.

“I’m so sorry for your loss ma’am,” he told Agent Roswell’s grieving mother. _You have no idea how sorry._

The elderly lady with red-rimmed eyes wrung her tissue as she thanked him.

“What kind of monster would do this?”

Steve thought of his smart redheaded child who liked jazz and hated nuts on her ice cream and didn’t know what to say.

\---------------------

 

Three weeks later, Steve came into work and found a somber office.

“Did you hear?” Maeve Cooper from accounting asked him.

“No, what happened?”

Maeve gripped his forearm and said mournfully, “Jordan is dead.”

Steve put his hand over hers. “Oh no. I’m sorry to hear that.”

Agent Jordan Musk was a friendly, popular man. A sharpshooter with a killer right hook to boot.

Steve asked, “Do we know what happened? Or is it classified?”

Maeve looked around and lowered her voice. “It is classified. And you didn’t hear it from me. He was sent to eliminate Black Widow. And Black Widow killed him!”

Misinterpreting the horror on Steve’s face, Maeve clarified, “He didn’t suffer.”

\---------------------

 

Steve called an emergency in-town-Avengers meeting with Fury, Coulson and Maria Hill.

All of his professionalism out the window, he opened bluntly, “How dare you put out a hit on my daughter.” Clint frowned, Bruce furrowed his brow, and Tony blanched.  Maria and Coulson looked collected as ever.

Fury, unflinching Fury, responded, “She is a threat to society.  I’m not losing any more agents trying to capture her alive.”

“She’s my daughter!”

“She’s clearly been brainwashed and programmed for ends that help enemy governments. She’s not your daughter anymore. She’s too dangerous to be free.”

“Please,” Steve said. He leaned forward, hands clenched at their clasp.

“I’m sorry Captain. This is the right thing to do now.”

“What if we get her first?” Tony asked.

“You have had six years with no results. It’s too late.” Fury paused. “She’s a bigger threat with every passing day.”

No matter what tactic Steve, Tony, and Bruce employed: tact, logic, bargaining, begging… Fury and Hill would not be moved on the issue. Clint remained mostly silent, a troubled frown fixed on his face.

Coulson: unreadable.

\---------------------

 

On a weekday evening less than a full week later, Clint and Coulson sat across from Nick Fury.

Clint wore the same troubled expression that seemed a permanent fixture of his face these days.

“Do you realize what you’re asking us to do Sir? Steve is our friend.”

“I will hide your part in it. As far as SHIELD knows, you are both taking a mission in the alps.”

“Yes, cause the Swiss are known for their need for foreign government intervention.”

Fury placed his fists on his desk and leaned into them. “Now the question I have for you two is: are you up for the task?

Clint and Coulson exchanged looks. Coulson said, “I realize the threat is greater than the… sentimentality.”

Thumbing through the folder in his lap, Clint stopped and stared at the charcoal husk of what remained of the orphanage in Kiev. The next page had a list of names and ages. The youngest victim only two months old.

“This is not the Natalia I once knew,” Clint finally said. “I can compartmentalize enough to do my job. To protect future innocent lives.”

Fury stood up fully. “This is not an order, either of you can step down. I’m asking a great task of you gentlemen.”

\---------------------

 

Ayla Kennsington, a Austrian Socialite with a penchant for plunging necklines and micro dresses, drank her diet tonic water deeply, letting her mark see the curve of her neck as she swallowed. Before she was Ayla, she was Carrie Jvorski, a Polish secretary. A mere shadow with no name or history for the life before that.

She fell against her mark, “It’s too strong, I won’t be able to remember anything from tonight at this rate.” She giggled.

“Oh my dear, that means you’re doing tonight right.”

Looking up at him through her eyelashes, she responded, “I have the most handsome man in all Turkey with me, I’m certainly starting right.” Two more nights with the mark to get every secret from him, and kill him in an accident later in the week.

He ran a hand up her thigh and she tilted into it. He whispered into her hair, “Shall we make this party more private?”

Ayla gave a heavy-lidded stare and a tipsy-sounding affirmative. Yes, two more nights would do it easily.

\---------------------

 

She completed her objective. Ayla Kennsington and Johann Korvitch set sail from the harbor at 3pm. In a ‘tragic’ turn of events, it capsized; drunken amateurs sailing rarely goes well. Authorities will find his body the next day and assume that the young lady was lost at sea.

Black Widow peeked out from under the dock she was treading water under. 3am and all quiet. The security guard had finished a sweep so she wouldn’t expect to see him for another 40 minutes.

All clear.

Blending with the shadows, she slipped out of the water, up the wharf, and between two buildings. She just needed to change out of Ayla’s dress into the warm clothes stashed in the dumpster, clear the area, meet her handler, then...

“ _Der’mo_ ,” she thought as an arrow went through her dress and pinned her to the wall. Her gaze shot in the direction it came from. There. An outline of a man that could be mistaken for shadow.

Number one rule of subterfuge: Keep in character until you know more.

Ayla shrieked. Hands flew to her face and the shriek muffled.

"Who's there?" Ayla leaned to try and yank her dress free. It was tough material and Ayla was weak.

Black Widow palmed a knife. She needed to get closer for a close-combat kill.

“Drop the knife Black Widow,” A man’s voice said from the shadows.

 _Der’mo_ , Black Widow thought again.  
  
\---------------------

 

“Who do you work for?” Natalia, he couldn’t think of her as Black Widow, asked in English, any lilt of accent gone.

“SHIELD.”

She nodded in acknowledgement, but didn’t say anything else.

She only waited. Silent. Immobile. Accepting.

“There’s another way.” He said. “Another life for you.” No reply. Not even the inquisitive eyebrow 11-year-old Natalia liked to give him when she thought he was up to something.

“Come with me. Work for SHIELD.”

She still didn’t say anything. Only waited for him to keep going. But he was trained to use silence too. They stood in the alley for many long moments until Natalia crossed her arms. Probably for warmth- it was colder than hell-frozen-over and the girl’s dripping wet hooker-style dress only added to it.

Natalia said, “Surely you can find a pretty girl already, Agent. What with that devilishly handsome jawline. Or is bringing home a captive some kind of kink for you?”

“Do you not remember me Natalia?”

She didn’t even study him longer than a second before she answered, “The only SHIELD agents I’ve seen are dead.”

He asked, “Do you remember your childhood?”

“I’m usually good at riddles Agent. But I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re trying to glean from me.”

“I promise I’ll tell you. But first, what do you say about switching sides to the good side? I want nothing sexual from you. I want a different life for you.”

“You want my skill set for SHIELD?”

He confirmed, “I want your skillset to work for SHIELD instead of against it.”

“No. Just do it.” Kill me.

“You’d rather die than work with me?”

“I won’t trade in a known monster for an unknown. What’s the American expression…’the devil you know…’”

Clint couldn't believe that Natalia was arguing for her own death. Talking him into it even. If he weren't personally involved he would have.

He finally said, “I don’t know if I’m making a mistake by laying all my cards on the table. I’m the guy they hire to shoot and kill. I’m not a master negotiator like you, so I’m going to tell you what I know.

“This might or might not line up with what you know about your past. I know your father. You lived with him eight to fourteen. You were kidnapped by the Red Room and we couldn’t find you until now. I have proof.

“Your dad and I want you safe for your own sake. But I can tell you now that SHIELD won’t simply let you go. You’ve committed crimes against humanity and they’ll see that as something to be worked off.

“But I can promise you that you’ll be treated fairly. You will be doing work for the good of mankind, and we can go into more existential crap like ‘what is good?’ if you want but I want to wrap this up because you’re looking too cold.”

And she was. Even her master acting couldn’t hide the shivers racking her entire frame.

"If you take me, my employer's will find you."

“Shield is not afraid of the KGB.”

She rubbed her hands up and down her progressively blue-tinted arms. “You might as well kill me now. If I don’t check in with my handler, there’s a chip in my brain that will kill me much more painfully.”

Clint processed this. “How long do we have?”

Shivering shoulders shrugged. “Whenever they decide to remote activate it.”

“So if they think they have a chance to get you back, they’ll wait. Surely they won’t be trigger-happy with a valuable asset.”

She regarded him. “They know I’ll come back to them. They give me a drug.” She held out an arm, palm up.

"There is an implant under my skin injecting a drug into my system.” She tapped her forearm. When it runs out, I'll go into withdrawl. I'll do anything in my power to return for more. I'll attack you. I'll manipulate you and can't be trusted. Despite all my coherency right now, I'm a KGB drug-addict at my core."

"Bastards."

"Courtesy Mother Russia." A notable Russian accent for the first time came with a sardonic grin from her.

She spread her arms, dropping her knife with a clatter.

"Do us both a favor let the arrow go."

The words slurred together. Her eyes were heavy lidded. The spasms less pronounced. Stages of hypothermia. Not good.

His heart ached for the woman before him. Not so different from the lost, misguided 8 year old brought in 12 years ago.

"Do you believe that I only want to help you?" He finally asked.

"Everybody always has a real motive." Her words completely slurred.

"Do you believe me that I know your dad?"

She stared. "I don't know."

"Do you want to find out?"

Long, long, long. Too long she stared at him. Through him. Finally she said, accent in full force, "I will come with you."

"Kick all of your weapons to me."

She reached under her dress and pulled out a Glock strapped to her thigh. After setting it on the ground, she kicked it to him. "It's waterlogged anyway," she remarked as she took off her necklace and threw it to the ground too.

That innocuous silver tangle of baubles must be deadly somehow.

"Where's your stash?" Clint asked. She nodded toward a dumpster down the street.

"Go get it." With Natalia walking ahead, they walked further into the alley. At the trash can she jumped up to un-stick a dark pack taped to the inside.

"Throw it here."

He threw a towel from her pack to Natalia before rummaging through the rest of the pack for weapons.

Natalia turned away from him and took off that silly silver slip of fabric that constituted as a dress. In only her underwear, she dried her skin with the towel.

After relieving the bag of two guns, a lock-pick set, and some jewelry that might or might not double as weapons, Clint kicked the now safe bag back to her. He averted his gaze only when she changed into dry underwear.

Soon Natalia stood before him in a black sweatshirt, black sweatpants, gloves, and black cross-trainers. She had wrapped the towel around her wet hair like a turban.

He kicked a pair of handcuffs toward her. She put them on, no fuss.

Clint looked at her. She was shivering again, which was a step in the right direction after the early hypothermia signs.

Back when he spent years at their house for movie nights and dinners, Natalia would come down to watch sometimes after a shower with her hair wrapped up just like this.

His heart squeezed. He put hand to his earpiece and said, “Coulson, I’m coming in. With a…” Known hostile. Captive. Prisoner. Nothing quite right. “With Black Widow.”

After a loooong pause, Coulson replied, “Roger.”

\---------------------

 

“I know I’m a super genius Steve, but I can’t just hack Shield from here. Internal networks with high security exist for a reason!”

Steve paced behind Tony. “They know enough about her to send one sniper. I have to know what they know and find her first before they try again.”

“Which is why…” tap tap tap Tony clicked away at a keyboard.

Steve stopped pacing. “Why what?” he demanded.

“Why you are going to put this flash drive in one of the networked computers at SHIELD.” Tony pulled a flashdrive from it’s port and whirled around to hold it aloft, a gleeful Ta-da! expression on his face.

Steve yanked it from his hand. “I’m going now.”

“You’re welcome for my genius,” Tony called to Steve’s retreating back.

“Who says they had manners in the 40’s,” he muttered before returning to his console.

\---------------------

 

Steve jogged up the steps of the Triskelion, planning the best way to get Tony’s flash drive into a networked computer with no one being the wiser. It’d have to be good in a building full of spies and body language experts.

Phil Coulson intercepted him. “Hello Captain Rogers.”

“How many times do I have to ask you to call me Steve?” he said automatically.

“At least one more Captain,” Coulson said. Almost with a smile.

Years of working together had dulled Coulson’s fanboy giddiness solely out of familiarity. But the shine was still there.

“If you’ll come with me please,” Coulson paused long enough to make sure Steve followed, “there is someone you need to see. It might come as a surprise.”

\---------------------

 

“A surprise” turned out to be an understatement.

Coulson took Steve to the two-way mirror view of an interrogation room.

Black Widow, wrists bound in handcuffs chained to a bar in the center of the table in front of her, sat in an interrogation room across from Nick Fury and Maria Hill. Hill typed notes into a laptop.

“Are the handcuffs really necessary,” Steve asked automatically as he drank in the sole sight he craved for six years: his daughter alive and in the flesh.

Physically, she looked good. Healthy. Filled-out. Feminine. She had grown into an adult woman without him to see the process.

He went to open the door and frowned when the handle was locked.

“Not yet Captain. They need to finish the interview first.” Coulson really did look apologetic.

“Can’t it wait?”

“I’m sorry,” Coulson said.

Steve stepped back to stand shoulder to shoulder with Coulson and watch through the glass.

Her face had filled out- chin and cheeks not as sharp as they once were. Her hair was dyed darker than her natural color, cut just below the shoulders. Her lips moved, but since the audio was not on he could not hear if her voice was the same.

“Can you turn on the speaker?” Steve requested.

Coulson shifted, “I don’t think you want to hear what she’s saying.”

Steve argued, “I’ve read her file. I won’t be surprised by the crimes she’s committed.”

“Yeah, but what dad wants to hear about the sex acts his daughter was brainwashed into?” Clint said. He had slipped into the room without Steve hearing.

“I’m sure she’ll be vague enough on those parts,” Steve said. “No matter how bad the things she’s done and been through, it was still her life, and I…” couldn’t prevent it. Didn’t protect” he faltered, then finished, “ I want to know what happened to her.”

Clint and Coulson looked at him, and Steve was sure it was only the professionalism that masked any pity.

“Regardless,” Coulson said. “She’s reporting on a lot of highly classified names and locations that would be above your clearance.”

Clint clapped a hand to Steve’s shoulder. “I’m sure that she’ll tell you herself with her own version. If it were me, I’d want to tell you in my own words.”

The thought that he could talk to his daughter soon, relatively soon-ish, was overwhelming. He smiled.

Almost as if reading his thoughts, Clint said, “You won’t be able to talk too long before they rush her off to surgery.”

Steve’s smile vanished. “Surgery?”

Clint winced.

“I hadn’t gotten to that part yet Barton,” Coulson said, mildly.

“What surgery?” Steve scanned Natalia head to toe. Nothing stood out.

Internal injuries? Cancer?  
“The KGB bastards have a chip in her brain,” Clint explained. “They took brain scans as soon as we arrived, and Fury is pumping her for information while the doctors look at the scans and make a game plan.”

“Wha, what, what’s the hurry,” Steve stammered. His heart constricted.

He didn’t like that Clint and Coulson looked at each other instead of answering him.

\---------------------

 

After hours, hours too long in Steve’s opinion considering the remote-death chip, Hill and Fury finished.

An agent unchained Natalia from the table. Sid, Steve remembered, the Agent’s name was Sid. Sid led her around the interrogation table and led her through the door to the view chamber.

Steve stepped forward to hug her, and then faltered when she stiffened.

"Natalia, do you remember me?"

She looked at him. “No.”

He swallowed and grabbed her hand. She looked down at the touch, but didn’t remove her hand.

“I know you don’t remember me. But I’m your father and I love you. I know you have a long journey ahead, but I swear I’ll be here for you every step of the way.

“Every single step.”

She patted his hand with the fingers he wasn’t holding, even though her wrists were encased in handcuffs. “Thank you Sir,” she said. “I need to go now.”

They whisked her away for brain surgery.


End file.
